California retail head slams Prop 47 for rise in thefts after Target store lockdown

A California business leader blamed the staggering rise in store thefts and attacks on retail employees on the state’s soft-on-crime Prop 47 policy.

Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers’ Association (CRA), told The Post that brazen thefts — which has caused one Target location to lock down its entire inventory — have soared over the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.

The act, known as Prop 47, downgraded crimes like theft of goods under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.

Many have criticized the policy as a free pass for shoplifters to keep stealing while only getting a slap on the wrist.

“The problem now… is that, people who are drug addicted, who have mental health issues, they candidly will go into stores and they will steal,” Michelin said.

“They will sell those items out on the street, they then make money, they then continue their habit or continue a destructive lifestyle.”

These repeated offenders have plagued California retail chains in recent years, leading to a shoplifting crisis that caused a Target in San Francisco’s Folsom Street to put all of its cosmetic and toiletry products under lock and key.

The National Retail Federation’s 2022 retail security survey ranked San Francisco/Oakland as the second-most hard-hit metropolitan area by theft in 2020 and 2021, only behind Los Angeles.

Michelin said she has received calls from members in Oakland suffering because of “these repeat offenders,” claiming the issue shows the consequences of Prop 47.

“That’s where there is a flaw in Prop 47 because Prop 47 was promised to say, ‘Oh, we’re gonna have safe schools and communities,’” she said. “Well, we don’t.”

“When they made the changes, particularly to the retail theft… they opened this huge loophole where there’s zero consequence for the behavior because I’m not going to be held accountable for going in and stealing.”

One store suffering repeatedly is the Apple store in Palo Alto, where a pair of thieves made off with $35,000 worth of product in a brazen daylight robbery in front of startled customers.

Video shows the duo yanking multiple iPhones and laptops from display tables during Black Friday, with no store employees trying to stop the thieves.

The same store was robbed twice within 24 hours in 2018, where robbers made off with $100,000 in merchandise, and in 2016, burglars smashed a rented car through the store’s front and made off with thousands of dollars worth of Apple goods.

Michelin said that even when retail employees try to stand up to thieves, the outcome can be deadly. In one Home Depot, a security guard was shot and killed.

Police said the guard, Blake Mohs, attempted to stop alleged shoplifter Benicia Knapps last week. After a “struggle ensued,” he chased her to the store’s loading dock, where she shot and killed him.

Knapps then ran out, where her boyfriend, David Guillory, was waiting for her with her 2-year-old toddler.

Knapps was notably a security guard with priors for theft, and she was placed on a mental hold after choking herself with a seatbelt in the back of the Alameda Sheriff’s Department police cruiser until she lost consciousness, CBS reported.

With the continuing trend in thefts and repeat offenders, Michelin said lawmakers are failing to protect law-abiding California residents.

“Californians are gonna continue to suffer and, what I’m afraid of is that you’re gonna continue to see… armed guards in front of our stores, which nobody wants,” Michelin said. “But we have to protect our employees and we have to protect our customers.

“And unfortunately, I think there are folks in California who are more interested in protecting the people committing the crimes than the law-abiding citizens of our state.”

Lawmakers are currently debating a bill that would hold repeat offenders of organized retail theft more accountable, as well as create a diversion program to help stop the cycle of robberies.